Monthly Archives: October 2015

A study revealed that there is a 240 percent higher chance of an employee quitting a job with inadequate training programs than an employee quitting a job that has well-respected training programs in place.

Employee turnover is very costly to employers. Replacing an employee who makes over $60,000 a year will cost a company more than $38,000 in the long run. The average cost of training is $2,000 per employee, per year. Even if that is doubled, it is much less costly than the cost of employee turnover that occurs when training is not offered. There are intangible benefits to additional training as well. Well-trained staff are more productive, efficient, and generally happier.

A four-step method works very well when training front-line employees:

“Instructor does, instructor explains.”

“Instructor does, student explains.”

“Student does, instructor explains.”

“Student does, student explains, instructor evaluates.”

When designing training programs, team leaders and managers should analyze the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of their trainees. In the design phase, they should take that analysis and create learning objectives that address the issues. In the development stage, the instructor determines how best to present the training. The implementation step is next, and this is where the instructor actually conducts the training. Last but not least, the instructor should evaluate whether or not objectives were met and materials were used correctly.

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Conflicts sprout up 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, but we don’t experience them as troublesomeuntil they ripen into a dispute.At its core, conflict resolution is really a communication discipline with a set of flexible practices.Before we dive into those practices, it’s a good idea to gain an understanding of thesocial psychology that influences our disputes.We will begin by taking a look at the anatomy of conflict and how we get locked into thename, blame, and claim cycle.

We are human, and in relationship to one another, we often have conflicting wants, needs, goals, and values.We have imbalances in our access to resources, and we have differing opinions about the rulesthat should govern everyone’s conduct.A dispute arises from conflict when three circumstances come together at the same time:The belief that you’re being deprived of something you need or want, the belief that someoneelse is causing the deprivation, and the belief that deprivation violates a social norm or rule.

These circumstances can be captured in three words: Name, Blame, and Claim.So, let’s say Anu forgets to include his manager Ashu in an email loop about anew project he is angling for. Ashu gets upset about being bypassed and accuses Anu of violating the social ruleof running things past the boss.Her accusation is the beginning of the name-blame-claim loop.And we are off and running, it’s a full-blown dispute.

Ashu feels she’s been deprived of something she wants, she blames Anu for the wrongdoing,and claims she’s violated a workplace norm. So now let’s make this personal.If you backpedal to your most recent argument with a friend or co-worker, see if you can deconstruct your conversation.Remember, even if the argument only occurred in your head, it’s still a conflict, an internal conflict.So if you haven’t had a full-blown argument recently, thinking about something you’reupset about but haven’t yet aired.

CONFLICT RESOLUTION STYLE :

We will focus here on the five most typical styles we use in an effort to deal with our discomfort.These styles are Suppression, Avoidance, Resolution, Transformation, and Transcendence.We suppress, we refuse to talk about certain things, and we tell others that they shouldn’t talk about them either.We shut down any possible resolution because the whole process makes us uncomfortable.

We avoid, we don’t even give voice to our true thoughts or feelings.Instead, we stew, we harbor bad thoughts, we have imaginary conversations in our heads,or we talk to someone else, trying to gain alliances and prove we are right and the other person is wrong.Moving up the scale of our problem- solving capacity is resolution.With this style we are engaged, we are making an effort to understand why the conflict occurred,and we’re brainstorming ways to solve the problem cooperatively.

We also transform, that means we use the conflict to transform our relationships.We work to understand our conflict partner while also owning our part with the intentionof shifting our behavior in a lasting way.You’ll notice that I use the term Conflict Partner. This is because not only does it take twoto tango, it takes immense courage to take your part in the conflict.We are also capable of transcending conflict, moving past it free of bitterness and resentment,because we move past the need to engage. We’ve given up the hold our triggers have on us. On the other hand, if you notice that you travel between suppression and avoidance,start paying attention to your triggers, the things that typically upset you.And notice how your default response alters the quality of your relationships.Here’s why: You can’t resolve a conflict unless you’re willing to take your part in it.

So, be honest with yourself, where do you land?All this awareness building is an essential ingredient to resolving any conflict.

Our Session with FSS team today was quite exciting. Even you can have more session from us. Contact training@prism-global.org and book your session. Mean while KEEP READING….

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Great entrepreneurs and business builders share four defining traits: Heart, Smarts, Guts, and Luck. While the traits are configured differently across individuals, their presence is consistent across leaders of all types and sizes of organizations.

Heart-dominant individuals are driven by purpose and passion. They may lack data, experience, or even a business plan, but their all-consuming determination to translate vision into reality makes them formidable — and often highly successful. While Heart by itself is not enough to launch a great business, few entrepreneurs can succeed without it. It is what gives a venture meaning and sets it apart from the competition.

The big ideas that come from Heart-dominant people are shaped into rational, disciplined, strategically focused enterprises by those who are Smarts-dominant. Fact-driven and analytical, Smarts-dominant leaders have the ability to capture, frame, and extend the essence of the business. There are four different types of Smarts:

Book Smarts (IQ and innate intellectual ability).

People Smarts (relationship-building skills).

Street Smarts (experience and common sense).

Creative Smarts (inventiveness and ability to think out of the box).

The common thread tying them together is a highly developed capacity for pattern recognition. Smarts-dominant individuals can perceive and connect ideas, trends, and other patterns better than others and translate them into actionable plans.

Guts-dominant leaders are unafraid to act even without assurance of a desired outcome. Some are risk takers who thrive on high-stakes adventure. Others are risk tolerators, good at understanding, accepting, and managing the risks inherent in uncertain situations. Those whose guts are episodic are able to make tough decisions on their feet; others have longitudinal guts, characterized by resilience and perseverance. Both types of guts are critical at different points in a business life cycle.

Luck is fundamentally beyond an individual’s control. But Luck-dominant people maintain a distinctive attitude and network that increase their receptiveness to luck. Always open to new people and knowledge, willing to question their own assumptions, and relentlessly optimistic, those who are Luck-dominant help to create their own good fortune.

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People make decisions all the time. Many of them are unconscious, or almost automatic. However, those decisions impact their lives in a variety of ways. Even a decision as simple as what time to get up in the morning has an impact.

Decision making takes place in one of two areas of the brain. The Reactive Brain drives the automatic decisions, such as driving a car or avoiding danger. The Thinking Brain drives the more conscious decisions, like many of the decisions people make in their jobs and their personal lives every day.

One of the keys to better decision making in terms of creating a more productive and fulfilled life is to bring intentionality to the process by moving from reactive to thoughtful thinking regarding how to spend time, attention, and energy.

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The first day on a new job can be nerve-wracking. Common expectations are that the initial weeks and months will be a learning experience. Much like in the interview process, new employees should seek to make good impressions, listen more than they talk, be respectful, and focus on learning.
Tips for making good first impressions include:
*Dressing in alignment with others in the office.
*Being punctual, always.
*Being observant, polite, and helpful.
*Showing confidence.
*Being friendly while respecting boundaries.
*Thinking things over before asking questions, then asking good questions.
*Absorbing as much learning as possible.
*Syncing online profiles (like LinkedIn) to reflect the new position.

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Lying in the workplace is something that happens every day in every company. It has become common nature for people to use deception and lies to quietly sway the decision-making processes imperative for an organisation to succeed. My question is to you reader is : Why do people lie in the first place?

One theory about why people lie is that the need to lie is deeply rooted in the subconscious. Lying was a survival skill that kept dishonest early humans alive longer than honest ones. Lying is a skill that is learned rather than inherently known, and it is actually considered a milestone in brain function when lying is achieved by toddlers. Lying begins at a young age and keeps continuing on through teenage years and into adulthood.

Although almost everybody lies, there are four distinct types of liars seen in the workplace:

Occasional Liars:

This is where most of the lying population falls. These people do not like lying, but will do it sometimes. They are very easy to spot in a lie.

Frequent Liars:

This group of people lies often. They are so practiced that their lies become harder to define.

Habitual Liars:

These types of liars lie all day. Lies become a part of their everyday communication.

Pathological Liars:

This group lies instinctively and not necessarily for personal gain. They also tend to believe what they are lying about.

Lies also happen at all levels of a company, including:

*Senior Leaders: This group has the most impact because their employees look to them for direction. Goman’s study found that this group tends to omit information or mislead employees from the whole truth.

*Managers: Managers are the people who are closest with employees. Unfortunately, the lies managers were most often observed making were ones regarding responsibility for the success or failure of a situation, and not keeping their promises.

*Colleagues: Many of the lies that employees make are small and do not result in huge consequences for the company. The biggest lies that employees make deal with backstabbing and unethical work.

The biggest liars in the workplace are varied and can come from any type of background. Differences include:

*Gender: Although both men and women lie, they lie differently from one another. Men are more likely to seek personal gain and will tell lies that make them look more impressive. Women will tell lies that revolve around themselves, but that focus directly on other people. They also tend to lie mostly to other women.

*Socioeconomic Class: In Goman’s study, people of a higher economic class were shown to be more likely to lie than those from a lower economic class.